On the Sacrament of Extreme Unction

The Third Sunday in Lent

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lent

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Sacrament of Unction, or Extreme Unction, is one which might initially sound confusing, but which most Christians, whether they are Catholic, sacramental or not, would recognize from Holy Scripture. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." The famous verse from Psalm 23 is one of the most well-known in the Bible, but the line, "you anoint my head with oil," often passes without much thought. Unction is from a Latin root which means to anoint. Extreme Unction is a sacrament which relates to the anointing with oil for the purpose of healing.

Anointing with oil was a common practice among the Jews of the old testament. Much like the distinction between St John's baptism of repentance and Christ's introduction of Baptism in the Spirit, the use of anointing with oil differed between Jews and early Christians.

Scripturally, the first place to look is the Gospel of St Mark. In chapter six, Christ sends out the Apostles, two by two. “So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them,” (Mk 6. 12-13). In the Epistle of St James, this practice is again continued and presented to all Christians to practice, where it says, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,” (Jm 5. 14).

While there are differences in practice, particularly East to West, the use of holy oil for the purposes of healing is common to all Christianity. In the Western tradition, to which Anglicanism belongs, holy oil consecrated by a bishop is used. In the Eastern tradition, priests consecrate the oil, though generally it would be applied by a group of three or more priests rather than by a single priest as in the Western practice.

In all practices, it is a response to the Scriptural tradition of requesting God’s intercession for the miraculous healing of afflictions. In the Old Testament, most miracles were displays of God’s power over nature. For instance, the parting of the Red Sea. In the New Testament, however, God’s miracles were manifested through Christ’s miraculous healing, and healing done by the Apostles. It was this emphasis on Christ’s healing that earned him the name of the Great Physician in the Gospel of Mark.

Miraculous healing has been practiced continually since beginning of Christianity, and continues to this day. In the early church, it was noted as being an important tool of conversion in that it manifested God’s power as a gifts of the Holy Spirit, which St Paul had addressed in his letters of the Corinthians. St Gregory of Nyssa wrote in the third century that, “healing is the main door through which people come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Over time, healing ministry waned. While it continued to be practiced in the East in a similar fashion, in the West, healing was prohibited. Clergy were barred from providing more than spiritual counsel to the dying, and unction became known as Last Rites in the West. In Anglicanism, the full weight of the original ministry of healing was not restored until the 20th century. While the English Reformation and Book of Common Prayer 1662 had contained within it provisions for prayer and ministry yo the sick, the sacramental role of ministry to the sick remained somewhat limited. It was viewed as possibly leading to superstition. Extreme Unction comes from the Latin in extremis which refers to those close to death. The sacramental role of ministry to the sick thus remained generally tied to that period of near death. In the Christian East, this was also the case, though not to the same degree as in the West. By the 1920s, however, efforts at the Lambeth Conference sought to restore the full degree of ministry to the sick that was practiced in the Early Church.

With the restoration of the healing ministry in more recent times, there is an obvious question of what its role ought to be. In the days of Christ, human understanding of biology, disease and medicine were far more limited than today. Modern medical science has eliminated many diseases and afflictions, while countless others are treatable. John Macquarrie, the Anglican theologian, then asks the obvious question: is there still a role for the sacrament of unction in modern society?

Unction, writes Macquarrie, “is not an alternative, and should never be thought of as a rival to scientific medicine.” There are some sects of Christianity which decry modern medicine, viewing it as the resort of the faithless. Most Christians would recognize, however, that medicine is the fruit of God’s gift of reason to mankind and our continual effort to understand the physical world in which we have been created.

A fictional monk once noted that faith and reason are shoes on our feet. We can go further with both than just one. So it is with medical science and holy healing. In this sense, we should also be reminded that miraculous healing is not simply the final resort, to be pursued only once all medical avenues have been exhausted. In his Epistle, St James does not say, if there are sick among you, take them to the doctor; if that fails then lay hands upon them and anoint them with oil.

In the Book of Common Prayer, the rites provided for the ministry of the sick, and lays out provisions for how it is to be approached. Speaking to the sacramental nature of unction, Richard Foster wrote, “the laying on of hands in itself does not heal the sick – it is Christ who heals the sick. The laying on of hands is a simple act of obedience that quickens our faith.” As with the anointing with oil, the rite specifies that the priest say, “as with this holy oil thou art outwardly anointed, so may our heavenly Father grant that thou mayest be inwardly anointed with the Holy Spirit.” This rite makes clear the proper sacramental view and avoids the superstitious views that plague the topic of miraculous healing. During the rite, both passages from St Mark’s gospel and St James’ epistle are read to reinforce the scriptural basis of healing.

With such clear scriptural teaching, a long tradition in the church dating back to the time of Christ and proceeding largely uninterrupted, and evidence today of continued miraculous healing for those who have received prayer, the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, it is clear why Unction remains one of the seven sacraments of the Church.